Well, the Olympics are over. As usual, I ended up watching more than I would have expected and enjoying a lot more than my grumpy comments at the outset of the games indicated. And thanks to how far apart the games are spread, I fully expect to have mostly forgotten that by the next Olympics and just repeat my comments about how I don't appreciate them. So there.

Well one thing's for sure, if we want to ever have fusion generators working we need a moon colony of a size that puts current earth mining operations to shame. We need Helium 3, and it will be cheaper to drop it by the mega-ton than mine it by the gram on earth.

Just realistic. There has been a study done on this how long advanced races have before resource scarcity makes space conquest and high-tech advancements impossible. You gotta realize, at some point no matter what, some vital resources are going to be 10000 times more expensive per unit. At that point, space conquest would no longer be possible by civilian agencies, and probably neither for military. Unless a nation the size of USA, China, India or Europe pushes space conquest as main agenda there will not be any push at all! Sure tech is going to advance for a while still but space conquest needs to start somewhere, and there is a time-window for this that is closing in our life-times. I think the study said at current progression rate about 2070 is the absolute dead-line (but then the costs would already be absurdly high)

Sadly, I have no idea where I read this... I might have the date wrong ;p

My point is merely that things happen too slowly given the situation on this planet. We are beginning to lose the window of opportunity for space conquest. We have to get this going before resources become scarce, or the actual costs would be so high nobody, not even nations, could afford it.

I fear that before I die, we will reach this point and then, what hope is there left for the human race? The way it's looking now, the only nation still doing real space grunt work is China and they got the know-how to make Mars theirs. And who gets their first, gets to stake out claims first.

Alamar wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 21:22:I swear... If I hadn't been messing around on Reddit lately, I wouldn't have noticed the olympics were on... I also saw exactly none of it, minus some chick with an unimpressed look, and some /r/waterpoloboobs... : )

-Alamar

Other than a few clips of mistakes (the guy with 400 pounds of weight on his neck, the guy that landed in the pool on his back, etc) I didn't watch any of it, either. Sounded like (here in the US) NBC fucked it up anyway...

eRe4s3r wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 18:52:Also the Mars Rover cost 2.5bn and is nothing more than a fancy toy-car on mars. If at any point we want to get off this rock, we need to stop wasting money on drones and start building a space elevator or develop some other starting system. Build actual space-ships with actual crews, to see how humans could handle long-term travel, develop stasis tech where we don't die of 0 muscle and cardiac arrest. Develop propulsion and develop better power sources (goes hand in hand, really). We need actual geological digs on mars, we need to find what raw materials are there, how to terraform or at least how to sustain a colony there with 0 external resources. All this twiddling around with drones to analyse rocks is wasting time we could spend on colonizing space proper. Or actually building space-ships that could get us there. At least, an orbital shipyard.

Have you checked this ambitious project out? If they can really pull it off, it will be an amazing feat. I'm sure they'll have a lot of bumps and learning curves along the way, but they are serious about making it happen……

Eraser,

The cost of sending a robot that requires no life support and no solar radiation protection on a one way trip is $2.5b. The cost of sending humans there and back would be tens of billions, probably close to $100b. You're talking about sending people across the solar system, nothing less than the most difficult technological challenge ever attempted by the human race, and it will be decades before the technology exists to do this. Mars One is an unrealistic pipe dream. And none of this even considers things like how to handle cross-planetary contamination and things like that.

In the meantime, we need to know as much as we can about Mars so we're prepared for it when we go there. That's where Curiosity fits in.

For a fairly realistic reading of a fictional trip to Mars and what it might entail, read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars novel.

I swear... If I hadn't been messing around on Reddit lately, I wouldn't have noticed the olympics were on... I also saw exactly none of it, minus some chick with an unimpressed look, and some /r/waterpoloboobs... : )

eRe4s3r wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 18:52:Also the Mars Rover cost 2.5bn and is nothing more than a fancy toy-car on mars. If at any point we want to get off this rock, we need to stop wasting money on drones and start building a space elevator or develop some other starting system. Build actual space-ships with actual crews, to see how humans could handle long-term travel, develop stasis tech where we don't die of 0 muscle and cardiac arrest. Develop propulsion and develop better power sources (goes hand in hand, really). We need actual geological digs on mars, we need to find what raw materials are there, how to terraform or at least how to sustain a colony there with 0 external resources. All this twiddling around with drones to analyse rocks is wasting time we could spend on colonizing space proper. Or actually building space-ships that could get us there. At least, an orbital shipyard.

Have you checked this ambitious project out? If they can really pull it off, it will be an amazing feat. I'm sure they'll have a lot of bumps and learning curves along the way, but they are serious about making it happen……

"My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry S. Truman

Same here, to me Olympics are part of life. They add one of the greatest sport events in human history to our meager and pointless existences, I enjoy them for what they are. A good time to watch sports and to discover new sports and new athletes. Not to mention how each country presents itself in the opening and end ceremonies. China was mind-blowing awesome and so was the London olympics. Beyond that my memory gets fuzzy, but i remember that China pretty much set the bar for openings ;p

Even if the Olympics cost 200 billion, I wouldn't give a damn . They need to continue existing. They are only hope humanity has on ever getting everyone to cooperate on something without secondary interests. Even if it is just sport. This was also the first olympics where each nation of this planet send female and male athletes. The first in 2700 years!

Also the Mars Rover cost 2.5bn and is nothing more than a fancy toy-car on mars. If at any point we want to get off this rock, we need to stop wasting money on drones and start building a space elevator or develop some other starting system. Build actual space-ships with actual crews, to see how humans could handle long-term travel, develop stasis tech where we don't die of 0 muscle and cardiac arrest. Develop propulsion and develop better power sources (goes hand in hand, really). We need actual geological digs on mars, we need to find what raw materials are there, how to terraform or at least how to sustain a colony there with 0 external resources. All this twiddling around with drones to analyse rocks is wasting time we could spend on colonizing space proper. Or actually building space-ships that could get us there. At least, an orbital shipyard.

Dont get me wrong, Im all for space exploration but why go after the Olympics as the target??? I consider the Olympics one of the high points of a global human culture.

Wouldnt a better target be the US defense budget or something??

Maybe that's the fail? Comparing two completely unrelated items, both of which just happened to cost billions of dollars?

Curiosity was a major expense, but when NASA was in its cheaper, better, faster mode, there were a few high-profile failures like the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander. Better to spend the money and ensure success then go cheap and risk failure. Curiosity is going to teach us so much about Mars. I can't wait.

The Webb telescope, replacing Hubble, is going to cost 8 billion or something, which is also a huge expense. But Hubble has taught and shown us so much about the universe, and Webb will be so much more capable. The knowledge to be gained will be invaluable. Again, better to spend the money to get it right and ensure success, IMO.

Cutter wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 12:03:Anyone seen Black Dynamite before? I hadn't until last night and it's the funniest thing I've seen in years. They really did a great job with it. If you haven't seen it before - and dig the Blaxploitation genre - you have to watch it. You'll laugh your ass off!

Black Dynamite is fantastic. They hit ever cliche in the genre perfectly. After watching it I had to see "I'm Gonna Get Ya, Sucka!" again just to top it off. I think both are still are Netflix streaming for anyone interested.

I always look forward to the Olympic Games, and have been watching/enjoying them since I was a kid. The ‘Olympics’ as we know them today (modern Olympics) were inspired by the ‘ancient Olympic Games’, which were held in Olympia, Greece – a lot of history here. This is a tremendous opportunity for over 200 nations from all around the world to come together and compete within the same arena. This is where each respective elite athlete competes for their country vying for Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The best of the best competing for their country; they play for the game and country, and not ridiculously fat multi-million dollar contracts.

The level of time, discipline, training, and dedication of these athletes is remarkable in itself.

"My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry S. Truman

Cutter wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 12:03:Anyone seen Black Dynamite before? I hadn't until last night and it's the funniest thing I've seen in years. They really did a great job with it. If you haven't seen it before - and dig the Blaxploitation genre - you have to watch it. You'll laugh your ass off!

Black Dynamite is fantastic. They hit ever cliche in the genre perfectly. After watching it I had to see "I'm Gonna Get Ya, Sucka!" again just to top it off. I think both are still are Netflix streaming for anyone interested.

Anyone seen Black Dynamite before? I hadn't until last night and it's the funniest thing I've seen in years. They really did a great job with it. If you haven't seen it before - and dig the Blaxploitation genre - you have to watch it. You'll laugh your ass off!

"There are two kinds of people in this world; people who love delis, and people you shouldn’t associate with.” - Damon Runyan

The olympics are a massive waste, full of corruption, greed, and who can cheat without getting caught. Sports will always be a hobby in my view. If someone wants to pay you for doing them then bully for you, just don't ask for any tax dollars for your hobby or then the government has to subsidize everyone.